Archive for February, 2009

Being overweight needs immediate action! Thats why when I registered a BMI of 25.6 with a fasting blood sugar of 96, I decided to take action and become healthier with my diet and physical activity. Being overweight carries with it chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol problem. Not mentioning stroke and heart attack as endpoints!

For year 2009: Its NOW a Global Call to action as more and more children and adolescence are gaining weight. There’s no time to sit back and relax on this matter as inaction means DISASTER in the long run for these children!

A recent study published in www.bmj.com showed that obese adolescents have the same risk of premature death in adulthood as people who smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day!!!!This is indeed a scary thought.

Those who are overweight have the same risk as less heavy smokers.

BMI is a measure of your weight according to your height. For Caucasians, a BMI of >25 if already overweight but for Asians, a lower BMI of 23 is considered abnormal already.

What if one is underweight?

Being underweight carries with it a better prognosis as it carries with it no increased risk, irrespective of smoking status. However, if you are also too thin with a a body mass index of less than 17; then it carried with it the same risk of premature death as being overweight.

The study suggests therefore that being OBESE and Overweight at the age of 18 carries the same risk of premature death as being too thin! Both conditions stem from poor nutrition either too much or too little.

Its not late to start and do something for yourself or for our kids…. NOW!

Just a note for all of the readers with family members who are diabetics. This is just to make you aware that control of sugar is of paramount importance even at the time of hospitalization especially due to heart attack.

This new study published in Archives of Internal Medicine, Feb 2009 shows that the relationship between fasting blood sugar on admission and its ability to predict outcome of death within 6 months of the acute attack.

When taken as a continuous variable, higher fastingglucose level was related to a higher probability of in-hospitaldeath, without detectable threshold and irrespective of whetherpatients had a history of diabetes mellitus.

Higher fastingglucose levels were found to be associated with a higher riskof postdischarge death up to 6 months.

The risk of postdischargedeath at 6 months was significantly higher with fasting glucoselevels between 126 and 199 mg/dL (1.71 [1.25-2.34]) and 300mg/dL or greater (2.93 [1.33-6.43]), but not within the 200-to 299-mg/dL range (1.08 [0.60-1.95]).

Conclusions Short-term and 6-month mortality was increasedsignificantly with higher fasting glucose levels in patientsacross the spectrum of acute coronary syndromes, thus extendingthis relation to patients with non–ST-segment elevationmyocardial infarction. The relation between fasting glucoselevel and risk of adverse short-term outcomes is graded acrossdifferent glucose levels with no detectable threshold for diabeticor nondiabetic patients.

Better still…. across the spectrum of diabetes management that good control should always be practiced.

No ifs or buts…its the RULE!

Reduction in short term complications, the sense of well being…plus reduction of long term complications like stroke and heart attack…are more than enough for any diabetic in the family to make sure that good control should always be practiced.

Ths study tells us that up to the time of the acute event, high sugar continues to present itself as a menace. And that high sugar should not be relegated as a mere stress effect but for me should be aggressively treateed as metabolic effects can have lasting impact on ones health and are irreversible!

Be aggressiveas high sugar may not manifest any symptoms until its late!

Controversies continue to surround whether eggs can cause harm if taken daily or not. Debate among the experts continue with assumptions that cholesterol in the diet actually has little effect on blood cholesterol. No doubt that intake of saturated fat can increase the level of blood cholesterol and risk a patient to develop heart attack and stroke. The relationship of Egg intake to disease continues to be debatable.

OBJECTIVE—Whereas limited and inconsistent findings havebeen reported on the relation between dietary cholesterol oregg consumption and fasting glucose, no previous study has examinedthe association between egg consumption and type 2 diabetes.This project sought to examine the relation between egg intakeand the risk of type 2 diabetes in two large prospective cohorts.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—In this prospective study,we used data from two completed randomized trials: 20,703 menfrom the Physicians’ Health Study I (1982–2007) and 36,295women from the Women’s Health Study (1992–2007). Egg consumptionwas ascertained using questionnaires, and we used the Cox proportionalhazard model to estimate relative risks of type 2 diabetes.

CONCLUSIONS—These data suggest that high levels of eggconsumption (daily) are associated with an increased risk oftype 2 diabetes in men and women. Confirmation of these findingsin other populations is warranted.

The question arises: whether it is the intake of egg that increased the risk to develop diabetes. Or is it the relationship of the high fat diet associated with the egg intake that increased the risk. It is known that high cholesterol and saturated fat intake can increase a patients risk to develop diabetes.

So when the study participants’ daily cholesterol intake was assessed, it showed a relationship related to diabetes risk!!! When the researchers factored this relationship in, the association between egg intake and diabetes weakened suggesting that a cholesterol-rich diet might promote diabetes. This also suggest that a person who may like eggs may also eat other fatty foods that will result in increasing the risk to deveolp the disease.

So a not so good news for egg lovers who have family history of diabetes. This is one food that one may have to limit for now until more studies will show the relationship to be otherwise.

But for the others who have no risk of developing diabetes…I suggest that eggs should remain to be enjoyed as long as one should not exceed 3-5 eggs per week. This recommnedation will stay for now.

But do … Watch out in this site if new developments come in about eggs because for sure I will be the first to know and you will be the first to be informed !!!!

I used to take one multivitamin pill per day. I know of others who take tons of vitamins because they make them feel “better”. Or just a habit difficult to change. Or better still, relatives in the US send us with big bottles of these Vitamins as presents. But are they USEFUL?

Ever since, I already doubted the usefullness of these vitamins UNLESS one is not eating properly or is very choosy with food that predisposes one to deficiency of certain vitamins that we usually get from food. But for people that have problems of the Opposite, that is… controlling the intake, I suggest you might as well spend your money on something else that’s healthy and has important benefit on ones health.

Methods The study included 161 808 participants fromthe Women’s Health Initiative clinical trials (N = 68 132in 3 overlapping trials of hormone therapy, dietary modification,and calcium and vitamin D supplements) or an observational study(N = 93 676). Detailed data were collected onmultivitamin use at baseline and follow-up time points. Studyenrollment occurred between 1993 and 1998; the women were followedup for a median of 8.0 years in the clinical trials and 7.9years in the observational study. Disease end points were collectedthrough 2005.

Results A total of 41.5% of the participants used multivitamins.After a median of 8.0 years of follow-up in the clinical trialcohort and 7.9 years in the observational study cohort, 9619cases of breast, colorectal, endometrial, renal, bladder, stomach,lung, or ovarian cancer; 8751 CVD events; and 9865 deaths werereported. Multivariate-adjusted analyses revealed no associationof multivitamin use with risk of cancer (hazard ratio [HR],0.98, and 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91-1.05 for breastcancer; HR, 0.99, and 95% CI, 0.88-1.11 for colorectal cancer;HR, 1.05, and 95% CI, 0.90-1.21 for endometrial cancer; HR,1.0, and 95% CI, 0.88-1.13 for lung cancer; and HR, 1.07, and95% CI, 0.88-1.29 for ovarian cancer); CVD (HR, 0.96, and 95%CI, 0.89-1.03 for myocardial infarction; HR, 0.99, and 95% CI,0.91-1.07 for stroke; and HR, 1.05, and 95% CI, 0.85-1.29 forvenous thromboembolism); or mortality (HR, 1.02, and 95% CI,0.97-1.07).

Conclusion After a median follow-up of 8.0 and 7.9 yearsin the clinical trial and observational study cohorts, respectively,the Women’s Health Initiative study provided convincing evidencethat multivitamin use has little or no influence on the riskof common cancers, CVD, or total mortality in postmenopausalwomen.

Background

Classic, long duration aerobic exercise reduces cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk but this involves a substantial time commitment. Extremely low volume high-intensity interval training (HIT) has recently been shown to cause similar improvements to aerobic performance, but it has not been established whether HIT has the capacity to improve glycemic control.

Methods

Sixteen young men performed 2 weeks of supervised HIT comprising of a total of 15 min of exercise (6 sessions; 4-6 x 30-s cycle sprints per session). Aerobic performance (250-kJ self-paced cycling time trial), and glucose, insulin and NEFA responses to a 75-g oral glucose load (oral glucose tolerance test; OGTT) were determined before and after training.

Conclusions

The efficacy of a high intensity exercise protocol, involving only ~250 kcal work each week, to substantially improve insulin action in young sedentary subjects is remarkable. We feel this novel time-efficient training paradigm can be used as a strategy to reduce metabolic risk factors in young and middle aged sedentary populations who otherwise would not adhere to a classic high volume, time consuming exercise regimens

In this study short burst of intense exercise activity lasting for like 30 seconds resulted in improvement of parameters that can have an impact in preventing chronic illnesses.

The subjects used exercise bikes which we can easily buy in sports stores… performed a quick sprint insturcted to do it at their highest possible intensity for around 30 seconds. The results showing significant improvements in exercise parameters biochemically suggest that any highly vigorous activity carried out in few minutes in a few days per week should achieve the same protective metabolic improvements.

This is definitely good news to those who just cant find the right time and place to do their exercise workout. This is one of the first studies to document that short bouts of exercise can be as effective in improving metabolic parameters as the usual recommendations of moderate exercise for 30 minutes most days of the week.

Heart Rate of More Than 70 Beats Per Minute Increases Risk of Heart Failure: The finding that heart rate, specifically a heart rate more than 70 beats per minute, increased the risk of cardiac events in heart failure patients was the top take-home message for the Dutch cardi who chaired the European Society of Cardiology program committee.

Check your heart rate… feel your pulse and count how many beats in one minute.

What better way to help keep your heart fit is increasing physical activity. Athletes for example can have a heart rate of less than 50/min. Suggesting that their hearts dont need to work and pump more to give enough blood to the body… that’s what we call as FITNESS!

To be fit does not necessarily mean your slim and vice versa. Fitness is a totally different ballgame in the field of health. Fitness is a way of life… it requires the discipline to achieve it and the determination to make it part of daily living. In the end… losing the FATNESS will follow.